An OpenAI ad hoax mystery just got a new twist

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There's a mystery marketer playing 4D chess on social media — and they made another unexpected move this week.

Last month, a Reddit user claiming to be a disgruntled OpenAI employee alleged that the company scrapped a Super Bowl ad teasing its forthcoming Jony Ive hardware device, opting to run a different spot instead.

Then came the "leak."

A video purporting to be the shelved ad, starring Alexander Skarsgård, circulated on X and YouTube. It depicted the star of "Big Little Lies" (the irony is not lost on me) wearing earbuds and prodding a shiny orb-like object.

The video gained traction after several high-profile, verified accounts — including the Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian — posted about it. Thousands of X posts have since referenced the supposed ad, with some generating over 100,000 views, the media intelligence firm PeakMetrics told me.

OpenAI execs, including CMO Kate Rouch, were quick to denounce the video as "fake news" and said it had nothing to do with the company.

Seems like your standard AI deepfake hoax, right? Not so fast. Skarsgård's reps told me he really did star in the video and sent me a short behind-the-scenes production clip. They declined to share anything more.

Then the story got weirder.

Three tech-focused content creators told me they were approached in early February by a marketing agency called BrandWorks.

The agency offered to pay them to post about "a Super Bowl campaign in partnership with OpenAI" in which "a new hardware device would be teased," per screenshots of the messages I've viewed. BrandWorks markets itself as an agency that builds "viral launch campaigns for tech companies on X and LinkedIn." BrandWorks didn't respond to my requests for comment.

I was almost ready to move on when the mystery orb lit up my X feed once again this week.

Zachary Dive, a tech startup founder, posted a video on X that appears to show Joe Gebbia — the Airbnb cofounder and Trump-appointed US chief design officer — sitting in a San Francisco coffee shop, wearing what looks like the same chrome earbuds as Skarsgård. (Ohanian, who hasn't responded to my requests for comment, retweeted this one, too.)

Dive told me that he's never heard of BrandWorks and was "not sure" which device Gebbia was using. Gebbia didn't respond to a request for comment. He later posted to X, revealing a "device" he was twiddling with in the video — but not the one we were hoping to find out about. He instead heaped praise on his $3.40 Muji Gel Ink pen.

I'm determined to get to the bottom of who's behind the mysterious marketing push. Let me know if you have any further clues!

Email me: loreilly@businessinsider.com.